All Apologies
by Ketterly
Summary: Companion piece to my "Guilty Feelings" story.  Spike punishes Dawn.  Please don't read if corporal punishment offends you.


_This corresponds to Chapters 13 and 14 of my "Guilty Feelings" story. While this wanted to be written real bad, it doesn't quite fit in there, so it's getting its own home. _

_This is a discipline story with corporal punishment of a teenager as well as foul language. Please skip it if that bothers you._

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Connor slammed the door on the way out.

Angel went to his office and carefully placed the Oxley Charm in his safe, then peered out the office door and regarded Dawn silently for several long moments before he stormed off into the kitchen. Dawn looked questioningly at Spike, who just shrugged. They waited together until Angel returned.

"No!" Dawn shrieked immediately upon seeing the wooden spoon in his hand and guessing what he had in mind for it. "No, Angel, please! I'm really sorry!"

"Come here," he said sternly, pointing to a place on the floor right in front of him.

"No," she whined, grabbing onto Spike's arm for protection and comfort.

"Come here, _now_," he repeated quietly.

"Please, I'll go straight to my room and you'll never even have to see me again," she offered.

Spike sighed and cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Angel," he started.

"Be quiet, Spike," Angel barked. "If I have to come and get you, Dawn, I will."

Dawn looked uncertainly between the two vampires before she let go of Spike and bolted toward the door. Angel rolled his eyes and reached out, easily grabbing her. She yelped and tried to break free, but he jerked her to his side and cracked the spoon once soundly across the seat of her jeans.

"Don't!" she yelled, putting her hands back and twisting out of his grasp. "Don't you dare! Leave me alone! I'll tell Buffy!"

"Go right ahead," Angel said calmly. "I'll die happy."

Dawn sprinted up the stairs as quickly as she could, with Angel following easily on her heels and Spike on his. She panicked and ran straight to her room, looking around hopelessly for a means of escape. Angel swiftly closed the distance between them and took her by the wrist. She immediately sank to the floor in an effort to slow him down, but he got both of them to the bed and lifted her up and over his lap with no difficulty.

Dawn kicked as hard as she could and flailed her long legs in an attempt to get away. Angel stilled her with a solid smack of his hand to the back of one thigh.

"Please, Angel, don't," she whimpered as the tears flowed freely down her face. "Don't spank me. I'm really sorry."

"You're about to be," he replied ominously.

Angel raised the spoon high only to have it handily snatched away by Spike, who flung it away from them.

"No," Spike stated simply, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Stay out of this, Spike," Angel warned.

"I won't deny that Lil'bit here could benefit from a trip across your knee, Angel, but you're doing it for the wrong reason," Spike accused. "You're angry, and you're scaring her half to death."

"She deserves to be scared!" Angel countered, seeming for a moment to forget the girl lying over his lap. "After the way she's acted, sneaking off—dragging Connor—dangerous, stupid ploy for attention—give her some attention now—"

"I wasn't trying to get attention!" Dawn wailed.

"Oh, please, Angel," Spike said, ignoring her now as well and focusing solely on him. "All that may be true, but that's not the reason you want to do this. It's not her fault Connor's upset with you; it's your own fault, you sod. Don't you dare take it out on her!"

"Get up a minute, Dawn," Angel said gently, patting her on the back of the leg and helping her to her feet. "Just … go stand in the corner."

"Okay," she said immediately, very eager to please him now.

Dawn scurried to the nearest corner and plopped down into the floor, facing them. She ran a hand underneath her and absently rubbed at the place where Angel had smacked her thigh.

"I am not taking anything out on her," Angel continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Don't _you_ dare undermine me in this!"

"I'm not undermining you, Angel, for God's sake!" Spike exclaimed. "Don't be so dramatic. But you're not going to touch that girl, not when you're three seconds away from losing it on her. If you think she needs to be punished, then fine. I'll do it."

"What?" Dawn and Angel asked together.

"I'll do it," Spike repeated.

"You'll do it?" Angel asked doubtfully.

"Yeah, that's right," Spike said. "I'll do it, and then it will be over and done with, do you hear? You'll let her be."

"What makes you think I have any intention of agreeing to that?" Angel asked, getting right up in Spike's personal space.

"Because, Angel, somewhere in that dense, stupid head of yours, you know that I'm right. Besides, I practically helped raise that girl—while you, _you_ ran off to play bloody hero and left her and her sister alone with the likes of … well, of people like me. So don't you even pretend that you have any right to lay a single hand on her. If she needs smacking, then I'll do it."

The two of them stared at each other for a long, tense minute before Angel strode across the room to retrieve the wooden spoon. He thrust it at Spike, holding it firmly to his chest with one hand.

"If you're gonna do it, do it right," Angel said, his voice low. "If you don't, you might just find yourself in a refresher course on the subject. Got it?"

"Get your hands off me, Angelus," Spike spat, his jaw working angrily as he took the spoon and knocked Angel's hand away from him in one fluid motion. "I'll do it properly. Now get the hell out."

Angel smirked unpleasantly before turning to stalk from the room. Spike followed him and all but slammed the door, quickly locking it behind him. He paused for a moment with his back against the door, seemingly lost in his own awful reverie.

"I'm sorry, love," he eventually said, not moving from the door. "That's … That wasn't something you should have had to witness. Sometimes … Sometimes Mummy and Daddy don't get along all that well, but they really do try."

He smiled slightly, and Dawn hesitantly left her place in the corner to come to him. She quickly wrapped her arms around his neck before withdrawing them and eying the spoon nervously.

"Yeah," Spike said quietly. "I'm gonna do it, pet. You can't tell me you don't know that you've been a holy terror."

"You don't have to," she said softly. "Just tell him you did."

"I may call him stupid, love—and I mean, he _is_ Irish after all—but he's not that stupid," Spike said, making his way to the bed. "Besides that, I agree with him. You need smacked in the worst way."

"I do not," she denied hotly, some of her courage returning now that Angel had gone. "You never sm... You never did it before."

"I had a chip in my head," Spike said dryly. "You think I wouldn't have done it then if I hadn't?"

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Please. You would have just eaten me."

"That's as may be," Spike said, dismissing the issue. "Doesn't change the fact that you and I are going to do this here and now. So come here and let's get it over with."

"No," Dawn refused, crossing her arms over her chest.

"No?" Spike asked incredulously. "You're telling me no, after what I just saved you from? If you want, I can call Angel back in here and let him smack the fire out of you. Is that what you want, pet?"

"No! I want to be left alone!" Dawn said, growing nervous again.

"Don't answer me back, bit," Spike said, his voice growing more and more stern. "Not right now. I promise you, after this is over, you and I will be pals again. But right now, you're going to drop your jeans and get your little behind over my knee!"

"What? Really?" Dawn said incredulously. "No way. No. My pants are not coming down. Not even."

"Fine. I'll do it for you," Spike offered, reaching toward her.

"No," Dawn said, her voice hovering somewhere between defiant and whining. "Connor didn't get his pants taken down."

"Is that really how you want to play this, pet?" Spike asked, raising his eyebrows. "You want the same treatment as Connor?"

"Well … Well, no," she said uncertainly, thinking it over. "I guess I don't want what he got."

"Damn straight you don't. That boy has an extremely high pain tolerance, and he's still going to be limping half the way home."

"Well … just … fuck that!" Dawn said angrily, her face reddening as she became increasingly apprehensive. "I don't care. You're still not taking my pants down, you pervert. You just want to look at my ass. Well, fuck that, and fuck you! You touch me, and I swear I will tell Buffy, and she will send you right back to hell!"

"Listen at the mouth on you," Spike commented disapprovingly, though it seemed to border on impressed. "Such a pretty mouth, too, for such ugly words to come from."

He sighed, caught Dawn by one arm, and undid the snap on her jeans before yanking her across his lap. He tugged her pants halfway to her knees but left her panties in place.

"No!" Dawn shouted angrily, pulling as far away from him as she could. "No, no, no! Let me go, Spike!"

"Don't make this harder than it already is, love," Spike said softly, easily repositioning her where he wanted her.

"Let me go!" she wailed again, but this time it was accompanied by a broken sob. "Don't do it, Spike. Please don't do it. I'll be good. I'll be so good."

Spike frowned, raised the spoon, and smacked her bottom once, low and hard. Half of an angry red splotch appeared just below the hem of her underwear. Dawn gasped and was completely silent for a few seconds before abruptly bursting into tears of genuine anguish. Spike painted a matching mark on the very top of her other thigh before tossing the spoon into the floor.

Dawn reached back with both hands and tried enthusiastically to rub the sting out. Spike gently gathered her wrists and held her hands away from her bottom. She cried out mournfully at the realization that he intended to do more.

"Hush, love. Don't carry on so," he murmured. "It's almost over."

He planted three light smacks of his hand squarely on the seat of her panties before pulling the weeping girl into a sitting position on his lap. She held him around his middle and buried her face in his neck, sobbing brokenly.

"It's all right, pet," Spike murmured, rubbing her back. "You've been punished enough now, haven't you? It's all over. Everything is all right."

Spike took a shuddering breath of his own, and Dawn pulled back to look at him uncertainly.

"Are you crying, too?" she asked, peering at him through wet lashes and trying to get herself under control.

"No, of course not," Spike said hotly, pulling her back to him and pushing her head against his chest. "Don't be ridiculous. And don't ever make me have to do that again, because I don't think I can."

"I just wanted to help," she said between big gulps of air. "I didn't mean for anything bad to happen. I just wanted to help."

"I know you did, pet, I know," Spike soothed. "It's all right. You did help. Even if you went about it in the stupidest way possible."

Dawn smiled slightly and pulled away from him again, dabbing at her red-rimmed eyes.

"Angel is so mad," she said dejectedly. "Connor too. He'll probably never speak to me again."

"Don't you worry about that, bit," Spike said reassuringly. "Despite what you saw tonight, both of them are grown ups. They just don't always act like it."

Dawn shook her head sadly. "Angel's really mad. It won't matter what you tell him, he's gonna say you didn't hit me hard enough, I know he is. He's gonna use the wooden spoon on me, and it's gonna hurt."

"Now, bit, I'm disappointed in you," Spike said in mock sternness. "You should know that of _course_ we're going to _hide_ the bloody thing so that Grandpa can't make either one of us fetch it for him."

"I heard that," Angel announced from outside the door.

Dawn started and got to her feet, quickly replacing her pants and wiping her eyes.

"Go away," Spike said, rolling his eyes and seeming not at all surprised that Angel had returned.

"I'm not mad anymore, Dawn," Angel promised. "Can I come in?"

"No," Spike answered for them. "You can go away."

"Spike, open this damn door," Angel said, irritated.

"All right, all right," Spike said, getting leisurely to his feet.

He caught Dawn's eye and nodded wordlessly toward the spoon. She smiled and tossed it quickly out the window. Spike nodded his approval before letting Angel in.

"She's been smacked, and it almost killed me. The two things you wanted most. You happy now, you git?" he asked dourly.

"I'm sorry, Dawn," Angel said immediately, ignoring Spike. "I didn't mean to frighten you. I lost my temper, and I apologize."

"It's okay," she said shyly.

"It's really not," Angel said. "But thank you for saying so."

"Don't even think about stepping a toe out of this room for a few days, love," Spike said. "You are on major lock down."

"Okay," she agreed glumly, crawling under the covers, exhausted. "Good night."

"Come on, old man," Spike said, ushering Angel toward the door.

Angel glanced around the room.

"You threw the spoon out the window, didn't you?" he asked.

"What? Me? No!" Spike replied with wide-eyed innocence. "I assure you I would never do such as that."

"Right," Angel said, giving him half a smile. "Never."

"Well. Except for that once..."


End file.
